And how did he know all this? Just how deep a connection had he formed? I wriggled, trying to get out from underneath him, but he pressed me back down. “Damn it, Lucian, let me go!”
“Not until I get an answer. I want this, Risa. I need this.”
My heart hammered at the edge in his voice, and again I saw that fierceness. And suddenly, I realized why. “This is about revenge for what they did to you, isn’t it?”
His smile was a savage and wholly human thing. And it was yet more proof that Lucian was very different from other full-blooded Aedh.
“Totally. And if feeding my need helps your cause, why is that a bad thing?”
“So basically, your presence here isn’t about sex, but about gaining access to information on the Aedh that you might not otherwise get.” Even as I said the words, bitterness swirled through me. It seemed everyone new in my life wanted something from me. Lucian, Azriel, the Raziq, even my father. They were here for a purpose rather than any real caring.
Lucian studied me. “In truth, are we not using each other? I have a need for revenge, and you have a need for information about the Aedh. While we each pursue our goals, we take our ease in each other’s bodies. I cannot see how that is not a worthwhile exchange.”
Put that way, I guessed it was. Except that I thought he was a safe harbor, the one place I could go and not be on guard.
“You’re
using the connection created through sex to steal information. That’s not right, Lucian.”
“I did not know who you were or what you were involved in when I intervened in the fight between you and the Razan,” he retorted. “It was only after we’d become intimate that I realized the truth and seized the opportunity to combine my desires. And do not doubt that I desire you, regardless of what else I might seek from you.”
I couldn’t doubt his desire when the fierceness of it was pressed between us. It was a fierceness I fought to ignore, even though half of me wanted nothing more than to lose myself in the ecstasy of sex rather than a lingering sense of loss.
Although really, what had I actually lost? The truth was, we didn’t have anything in common other than an almost insatiable need for each other and great sexual chemistry. It was never going to be more than that, and I’d known that going in. He was Aedh, and they didn’t do emotions as we knew them. So why the hell was I angry?
I didn’t know. And there seemed to be a whole lot of that in my life of late, too. Between Lucian, Azriel, and my goddamn absent father, it was a wonder I wasn’t more of a mess than I was.
“How can I be really sure that you’re telling the truth?” I said, an edge in my voice.
“You can’t. But how can you be sure any of us is telling you the truth? Everyone has their own agenda, Risa, even the reaper who supposedly guards you.”
He pressed his knee between my legs and moved them apart, then thrust himself deep inside. Despite my apprehension and anger, it felt so good that I wanted to moan. But I didn’t—though only because I was fiercely holding on to the need to question him. If I gave into pleasure, I’d be giving in to a whole lot more. Even if I wasn’t entirely sure what that more was.
“But not everyone has direct access to my mind,” I said, my words a little breathless as he began to move, only—damn him—this was no slow seduction of the senses, but rather a ravishment filled with forceful and furious intent. And it felt so good that I had to battle to ignore the sensations threatening to engulf me.
“The reaper has, and his link is far deeper than anything I have achieved. If you want to fear anything, fear that.”
Before I could reply, before I could even digest the import of his words, he claimed my lips with a kiss that was as harsh as his lovemaking. From that moment on there was no more talking, only an intense and brutal sort of pleasure that swept me swiftly into rapture and then far beyond it.
For sometime afterward, I could only lie there, replete, exhausted, and still furious. But eventually, I pulled free from him, climbed out of bed, and strode to the shower.
“You’re angry,” he said, sounding oddly surprised. Like he hadn’t just seduced the hell out of me in an effort to get what he desired—information, if not consent.
I flicked on the shower and waited for the water to heat up. After a second or two, he seemed to realize I had no intention of answering him, and sheets rustled as he climbed out of the bed.
“Don’t touch me,” I said, long before he could. Not because of the anger, but because I knew that, once he did, I’d be putty in his hands again. I couldn’t resist him; or maybe I simply didn’t want to resist him. Either way, I simply wasn’t in the mood. I wanted to hang on to my anger just that little bit longer, even if it was stupid and unreasonable.
He stopped in the doorway and crossed his arms, leaning a powerful shoulder against the door frame. “I don’t understand why you feel this way.”
He didn’t understand, and Azriel didn’t understand. Two sides of the same coin, and both of them incapable of giving me what I truly wanted.
And you knew this from the beginning, so what the hell is your problem? And what the hell do you want from the reaper?
Honesty, I thought. That’s what I want. That’s what I’ve always wanted.
I stepped under the water and raised my face to the needle-sharp spray, enjoying its sting against my skin. But I was also aware of the weight of Lucian’s gaze on me.
After a while, I reached for the small bottle of shampoo and finally met his gaze. “I’m sick of people not telling me truth, Lucian. Everyone is playing their own game, and everyone is using me to do it, and yet no one is bothering to fill me in on all the details. And it’s pissing me off.”